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Moxiemail

Farewell, Big Medium

Global Moxie began exactly ten years ago as a one-man show with a single product, a web content management system called Big Medium. It’s painful to bring an end to one’s beginnings, so it’s difficult to make this announcement: development, support, and sales will no longer be offered for Big Medium.

This unfortunately makes official what’s already been the case for some time. The last software update was over three years ago, and as sales ebbed and new opportunities arose, my ability to provide adequate support waned. It’s time to throw in the towel.

What happened?

Big Medium was aimed at web designers who wanted a simple, inexpensive system that could accommodate very flexible designs without requiring much tech know-how. It was a product that was sorely needed in the first years of the century before the explosion of competent open-source CMS’s. At the time, Big Medium seemed promising both commercially and creatively.

Although thousands of websites adopted Big Medium, it never got the scale to make it commercially successful. With Wordpress, Drupal, and many other terrific systems now available to designers, an inexpensive commercial CMS just isn’t viable for me as either a business or a creative pursuit. The future—for Global Moxie, at least—lies elsewhere.

This is hard. I care a great deal about the product and its small but dedicated community. I stuck with Big Medium far longer than good business sense dictates because I love it… along with the community that formed around it. I’m proud of what I built, and proud that so many people still use the software. Thank you all very much. I wish I’d been able to make Big Medium more successful for you.

I know this leaves people who use Big Medium to power their businesses in an awkward spot. I’ll do what I can to make sure that you can continue using it as long as you find it useful.

What now for Big Medium?

In the next few weeks or months, I’ll release one more version of Big Medium with an MIT-style license that allows anyone to use and modify the software for free. The “new” Big Medium will live at a separate website, where the FAQ and forum will continue to exist for reference and community-based assistance.

When will this happen? I don't have a firm date yet. I’ll get this done as soon as I possibly can, but there are a few non-trivial code changes to make this happen—and a new website to be built, too.

In the meantime, licensed users can continue to use the software indefinitely; you may install it on an unlimited number of servers using your current license number. The support forum will remain open here until the transition to the new site. Please feel free to use the forum to pose questions to the community. I may stop by occasionally, but I’m afraid it’s no longer a source of official support.

I’ll continue to use Big Medium to power this site and my own projects, and so I expect that I’ll make occasional improvements to the software for my own needs. When I do that, I’ll update the open-source version to include those changes.

I’ll have more announcements about this when there’s more news to share. For now, if you have any questions about these changes, please email support@globalmoxie.com.

What now for Global Moxie?

Global Moxie is all about the mobile future. And we’re growing. I’m assembling all-star teams to take on ambitious client projects for mobile apps and websites. I’m on the road nonstop these days to meet companies, teach design workshops, and speak at a constant stream of tech conferences. If all goes well, there may even be a pair of new books about mobile design this year.

This is all wildly exciting, with the very disappointing caveat that it no longer leaves any time or resources for Big Medium. Thanks to everyone who supported the genie over the last decade. I’ll miss him—and you—very much.

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